5 Reasons Aereo Isn't a Cord Cutter's Dream

The Aereo Web-based TV solution launches today, and it's getting a lot of press even though it's only available in New York City. Much of the buzz is around its backer, Fox TV and USA Networks founder Barry Diller, who has much deeper pockets than the usual folks annoying the cable companies.

Aereo uses a set of tiny antennas in Brooklyn to beam over-the-air TV channels through the Web to PCs, Macs, and iOS devices. For $12 per month, you also get a network-based DVR, so you don't actually have to watch your programs at a specific time.

I'm a big TV fan who has been using over-the-air TV for years, and I can tell you Aereo is just part of the equation. Even if Aereo survives the lawsuits against it, it won't deliver all the programming you're looking for, and it won't necessarily deliver it to the TV on which you want to watch it.

To truly dodge the cable companies you'll have to cobble together programs from several sources, and potentially give some up entirely. Cable networks like HBO and Showtime, especially, are so dependent on monthly service fees from cable TV companies that they often won't offer up their latest shows any other way.

That said, let me walk you through some of Aereo's faults, and how you or I could solve them to save money on our TV bills.

1. You still probably need a set-top box. Like most people, I prefer to watch TV on a big panel I can share with friends, not a squidgy little 10-inch screen. Aereo says it works with the $99 Apple TV and Roku set-top boxes, which are the best way to get Aereo TV onto your big-screen TV. (From the coverage I've seen, though, you'll also need an iPhone or iPad to take advantage of Aereo over Apple TV.)

Which of the two boxes you buy depends on which other programs you want to watch. Take sports, for instance: Roku has NBA, NHL, and MLS. Apple TV drops the soccer, but adds baseball. Both boxes have Netflix, but Roku offers movies and TV shows from Hulu and Amazon. Apple TV, of course, has iTunes. Different choices would offer different payoffs to Kindle Fire and iPad users, for instance.

2. You may be able to get better quality for free. The thing about over-the-air TV is, it's free! Pure OTA signals are in glorious high-def, too. I have a $60 Winegard SS-6000 antenna pointed out my window and I get great reception.

Aereo's monthly fee may be worth it for the DVR capability. TiVo charges $99 for a TiVo Premiere DVR box that works with OTA, plus a rather painful $20 per month for its sleek user interface and channel guide. I have TiVo and it works beautifully with OTA TV, but I'm paying $12 per month on an older plan; $20 seems harsh.

You could also pay up front for the $195 Brite-View BV0980 or $400 Channel Master CM7400 OTA DVRs, neither of which we've reviewed. But both get mediocre reviews on Amazon for their clunky user interfaces. Neither charges a monthly fee.

3. It won't satisfy sports fans. Few sports games are shown on broadcast TV, so Aereo won't help you there. An Apple TV can get you MLB, NBA and NHL apps. Of course, they all cost extra: MLB.TV for the Apple TV is a harsh $125/year, and NBA League Pass costs $65-100. There's no way to watch most ESPN programming without a cable subscription, although you may be able to get ESPN3 through WatchESPN.com.

4. Cable shows get costly a la carte. Over-the-air TV gets you all the network shows, so you have your Glee, your Person of Interest, and your American Idol. There are even some Easter eggs buried in the wee hours of the mornings on OTA: I always have a few Law & Orders floating around my TiVo, for instance.

Netflix and other streaming services like iTunes (on the Apple TV) and Hulu, Amazon, Blockbuster, and Vudu (on other devices) can feed you a steady diet of movies and older TV shows. My daughter, for instance, never leaves the Netflix interface on our WDTV Live Plus. There's plenty of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Mysterious Cities of Gold and Sean the Sheep to go around.

For current cable shows, though, you'll have to pay by the episode or the season, if they're available. Episodes of Mad Men, Top Chef and Game of Thrones are on iTunes, but I couldn't find current HBO shows Eastbound & Down or Life's Too Short, for instance. And at $2-3 per episode or around $30 per season, it's easy to run up a big bill watching cable hits.

5. It's probably about to be sued out of existence. I don't have any kind words about this one. Aereo is way too similar to Zediva, which "licensed" individual DVD players to subscribers and streamed the movies to them. In the court decision killing Zediva, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said content owners had the exclusive rights to determine who would be allowed to watch their shows. In other words, just because something goes out over the airwaves doesn't mean the content owners lose control over it. Some legal minds are saying Aereo could prevail based on the Cablevision "remote DVR" case, where a cable company successfully argued that each customer was in charge of his or her own virtual DVR. I'm pessimistic. We'll see how this plays out in the courts.

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed...
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